Poll of the Day > Man, cutting out sugar is a lot harder than going to the gym

(+) Yeah! (+)

My body is just craving sugar so bad after 2 days without drinking any pop or energy drinks or sweetened tea
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Yeah, I went cold turkey a few months ago and had severe withdrawal.
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It's even harder when you have family in your house seemingly buying more junk food when you decide to eat healthier
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Sherm128 posted...

It's even harder when you have family in your house seemingly buying more junk food when you decide to eat healthier

My house is filled with junk food
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Of course your nutrition is harder than your training program (or workouts if you're not training for anything specifically). If you're doing moderate intensity/high volume training, you're in the gym for maybe 2-3 hours. If you're doing high intensity training, you're in the gym for an hour max (this is what I do). The other 20+ hours of the day is you trying to control your nutrition. It's a lot more difficult to do if you aren't doing anything about making it sustainable.

I love sweetened drinks as much as anyone. But I know it has a lot of empty calories (calories that contain no vitamins or minerals and especially no high quality protein). Rather than completely cut it from my life and fail my nutrition plan later, I simply allow myself one small or medium (12-16oz) sweetened drink every two weeks. I train my ass off in the gym, and I know that later on, I can have my matcha latte or my sea salt caramel coffee or whatever when I've earned it (by staying on my nutrition plan for the two weeks). It's served me well so far that I'm down to one drink per month, though I'm not going to give it up more than that.

Hope that gives you a decent example of how to make your own sustainable plan. Good luck to you.

try drinking water with mio or equivalent flavoring.

zero calories, zero sugar, but tastes like juice.
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Try eating fruit, that has good sugars in it.
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Ogurisama posted...

Try eating fruit, that has good sugars in it.

LOL
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"good sugars"
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Fruit is a great idea, but I think it should be understood that it's because it's nutrient-dense (contains vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber) and usually pretty light on the calories. It is a great way to cut down on your craving for something sweet.

Jen0125 posted...

try drinking water with mio or equivalent flavoring.

zero calories, zero sugar, but tastes like juice.

yeah, a couple of these handy has made it not too difficult to quit sugar for me anyways
obviosuly its not a perfect fix but its way better than gorging on sweets all day
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If my trips to Africa taught me anything... It's that I'm addicted to sugar.

I literally started bringing junk food with me when I went. I normally eat pretty healthy food, I rarely drink pop, but I do have a bit of a sweet tooth. At the very least I need a bit of fruit. An apple or something.
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Muscles posted...

Sherm128 posted...

It's even harder when you have family in your house seemingly buying more junk food when you decide to eat healthier

My house is filled with junk food

Then don't buy it, muscle boy
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Lol, not even. I used to eat all kinds of crap and got way fat, then I switched to fasting and eat MEAT only and not only is it only a mild nuisance since day one, I also lost 2 stone in 4 weeks.
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Muscles posted...

Sherm128 posted...

It's even harder when you have family in your house seemingly buying more junk food when you decide to eat healthier

My house is filled with junk food

Because you're not eating it...
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I had to go on a doctor's-orders sugar diet for over a year when I was a kid

It's hard but trust me, I lost so much weight it was kinda cool
I wasn't even working out or physically active at that time, and I still ate a lot of other unhealthy foods
Just think about how worth it it will be in the end :P
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Just eat less of it, cutting it out is dangerous and not even effective
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Muscles posted...

My body is just craving sugar so bad after 2 days without drinking any pop or energy drinks or sweetened tea

Eat more fruit!

My skin got so much better after my sugar relapses disappeared. Now my body loathes sugar. I'm 5'9 and weighed 155 lb at the beginning of last year. Now I'm 135 - 140 lb. I didn't even know I had weight to lose.
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Yeah, I'd recommend just getting sugar-free drinks like Coke Zero and Monster Ultra flavors. That's what I do. I used to drink a ton of sugar and have a bag of candy almost every night as a "dessert" but now I cut out the candy and drink sugar-free stuff and I'm pretty ok with it. The taste really isn't that bad. Just don't eat sugar-free gummy bears.

I honestly don't even change my diet much when I go to the gym. I don't consume much sugar anyway and I don't crave sodas if I'm working out consistently.

I'm doing keto diet, it's even harder because you can't do anything, like even bananas and apples are too sugary

Muscles posted...

My body is just craving sugar so bad after 2 days without drinking any pop or energy drinks or sweetened tea

Years ago when I very significantly cut back on drinking soda(now it's rare I do today), I found the big drink I discovered which enabled me to really cut back was discovering La Croix. Or for that matter, any other flavored carbonated water out there that's sold. And also switching to drinking cane sugar sodas over high fructose corn syrup sodas, was another thing that made me feel a lot better. It's worth it to look for those stores selling imported Mexican Coke or other sodas, since for whatever reason unlike the US, they are sold with cane sugar in the soda instead in that country. I prefer cane sugar sodas over HFCS soda, since my stomach doesn't feel so bloated after drinking the cane sugar type. I used to worry like you I'd never successfully cut back, but I managed to do so sometime in the mid or late 2000s. Good luck to you, I hope you're able to accomplish that goal.

And as for other things like ice cream, I often substituted lower fat and lower sugar things like fruit bars. Will still eat ice cream from time to time, of course. Good luck, hope you're able to accomplish this overall goal. Like others said, try to eat some fruits and vegetables at times as well. Even if its just fruit that has sugar in it naturally, like bananas or pineapple. For carrots, I know what often encourages me to eat that is to combine that with having a garlic hummus dip for them.
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